About ten days ago I had an hourlong conversation with Richard Dawkins for his Substack site, “The Poetry of Reality“. The video, from YouTube, is embedded below. As Richard says in his written introduction: We covered a myriad of controversial topics plaguing our world today: from the religious conflict in Gaza to modern-day struggles with […]
My conversation with Richard Dawkins
My conversation with Richard Dawkins
31 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, economics of education, economics of religion, law and economics, laws of war, liberalism, Marxist economics, war and peace Tags: free speech, Israel, Middle-East politics, political correctness, regressive left, war against terror
UN repeatedly condemns Israel, but Palestine (and Hamas) get off scot-free
31 Oct 2023 1 Comment
in defence economics, laws of war, war and peace Tags: Gaza Strip, Israel, Middle-East politics, regressive left, war against terror

Everyone who pays attention to the UN knows that it has repeatedly condemned Israel but barely goes after countries like North Korea, Russia, or Iran (all UN members), even though it’s pretty clear that these countries violate human rights far more often than does Israel. The UN seems to have an obsession with condemning Israel, […]
UN repeatedly condemns Israel, but Palestine (and Hamas) get off scot-free
Nick Cohen on the embrace of Islamism by the “progressive” Left
31 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, economics of religion, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, war and peace Tags: free speech, political correctness, regressive left, war against terror

Nick Cohen wrote an article in the Spectator that’s paywalled for most of us, but thank Ceiling Cat he also published it on his Substack site, “Writing from London.” It was originally called “Why the far Left supports Hamas“, but the title was changed when the piece moved to Substack. The original title was more…
Nick Cohen on the embrace of Islamism by the “progressive” Left
*GOAT* on Friedrich A. Hayek and his delusions
31 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in Austrian economics, business cycles, history of economic thought, macroeconomics, monetary economics
When writing GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of all Time, and Why Does It Matter? I vowed I would write the whole truth. Not just that I agreed with everything I wrote (the case with every book), but I that I would relate all that I was thinking. Here is one part of the […]
*GOAT* on Friedrich A. Hayek and his delusions
Casey Mulligan on Vaccines, the Pandemic, and the FDA 5/22/23
31 Oct 2023 2 Comments
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, health economics, politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: drug lags, economics of pandemics
Just make it easy to delist buildings
31 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, law and economics, property rights, Public Choice, urban economics
My column in the weekend papers:There is one other alternative. It is an alternative Wellington officials downplayed. But it is one that the council should take or that central government could progress instead.Why not make it easy to remove buildings from the district plan?A council needing legislation to address a local issue can propose a…
Just make it easy to delist buildings
Sinn Fein’s links to PLO,Hamas,ETA and of course IRA and other terrorist organisations.
31 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, law and economics, laws of war, war and peace Tags: Ireland, Middle-East politics, war against terror

I have to set this out at the start of this post. None of this has been investigated by me, it has all been done by other journalists. However all of this has been verified by me. All the relevant links are included in the post. It is also noteworthy to mention that I don’t […]
Sinn Fein’s links to PLO,Hamas,ETA and of course IRA and other terrorist organisations.
Bachelors of Advocacy: The Rise of Activism over Academics in US Higher Education
31 Oct 2023 Leave a comment

Below is my column in The Hill on the rise of advocacy courses and degrees in higher education. Activism has always been a valued part of our colleges and universities. Indeed, many departments have long incorporated advocacy subjects in their course of study, including in law schools. My concern is the degree to which advocacy […]
Bachelors of Advocacy: The Rise of Activism over Academics in US Higher Education
Americans and the Holocaust
30 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, law and economics, politics - USA, war and peace Tags: The Holocaust

Americans and the Holocaust is an exhibition at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, which opened on 23 April 2018. Before I go into the details of this exhibition, I want to mention one of the few Americans, Eddy Hamel, who was murdered during the Holocaust. Eddy Hamel was the first Jewish player, and […]
Americans and the Holocaust
War of the Worlds-October 30-1938
30 Oct 2023 Leave a comment

It’s Sunday evening, you turn on the radio and the news breaks that planet Earth is invaded by Mars. So what do you do? You panic of course. Well that was the case for many when they switched on the radio on October 30,1938. By the end of October 1938, Welles’s Mercury Theatre on the […]
War of the Worlds-October 30-1938
Wind Industry Outraged at Government Refusal to Deliver Even More Subsidies
30 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming Tags: celebrity technologies, wind power

It takes real audacity for the most heavily subsidised ‘industry’ on earth, to demand even more. And it takes real courage for the governments who have been handing out massive subsidies, without question, to reject demands for more of the same. Which is where the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) comes in. Led […]
Wind Industry Outraged at Government Refusal to Deliver Even More Subsidies
Israel wants peace
30 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace Tags: Israel, Middle-East politics, war against terror

Ripping down the “kidnapped” posters
30 Oct 2023 Leave a comment

One act that is absolutely reprehensible, unjustifiable, and downright sick is the ripping down of posters and fliers showing pictures of the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7. No matter what you feel about what’s going on in Gaza right now, there’s no justification for ripping down posters calling attention to Jewish (and non-Jewish) […]
Ripping down the “kidnapped” posters
Real ESG
30 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in financial economics Tags: efficient markets hypothesis
If you care about corporate social impact, start measuring consumer surplus. From the NBER:An Economic View of Corporate Social ImpactHunt Allcott, Giovanni Montanari, Bora Ozaltun & Brandon TanWORKING PAPER 31803ISSUE DATE October 2023The growing discussions of impact investing and stakeholder capitalism have increased interest in measuring companies’ social impact. We conceptualize corporate social impact as the…
Real ESG
Monetary policy and estimated excess demand
30 Oct 2023 Leave a comment

In my post last week on ANZ’s note on the balance of payments, I included this chart from the latest IMF WEO (numbers finalised late last month). On the IMF’s read we had the most overheated advanced economy this year taken as a whole. ANZ themselves followed up with this chart (As a reminder, the […]
Monetary policy and estimated excess demand
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